Chapter Three
Jack looked around the shop as he entered. Wall to wall woo woo. He wondered if Renee was one of those new-agey types, wondered if she would put crystals in the windowsills and refused to make decisions if Mercury was in retrograde.
But none of that mattered. None of it mattered because he’d accept her quirks much the same way he knew she’d accept his. Excitement warmed him. He’d not been this interested in pursuing a woman ever.
Which was as it should be, of course. She was the one after all. Getting to know her would be fun.
He didn’t even have to search to find her. He felt her before he laid eyes on her. Spice? What was that? Following his senses led him around an aisle of shelving and there she was, a huge smile on her face, cat-eye glasses perched on her nose, a tight T-shirt with some sort of sweater over it. She wore little or no makeup and her hair curled around her face in no real pattern. And yet she was the most breathtaking woman he’d ever seen. She was...unexpected.
The citrus and cinnamon of her scent mixed with the pungency of mango, the sweetness of strawberries. He shook his head, trying to free himself from the siren song of her existence but then let go, let himself fall into it because it was hers and that was how it was supposed to be.
“That looks really good. What would you recommend?” He leaned one elbow on the counter and sent her his very best charming grin.
“Well, look here! It’s Jack. Hello, Jack.” Her smile in return caught him in its artlessness and lack of guile. Not that she was naïve or innocent, there was definite mischief there dancing in her eyes, but she wasn’t trying to sell him anything, not trying to get him to have babies with her. Though, holy shit, did he want to have babies with her.
That rocked him. He liked kids, other people’s kids though. Cade hadn’t been kidding about the impact of a mate bond. He wanted to bury himself inside her, wanted to take care of her, to build a whole lifetime. For a man like him, the depth of that need took him by surprise. What he’d had, had always seemed like it was enough, until he stood there looking into Renee’s face and came home.
How did a male process all this stuff and keep his shit together? His estimation of Cade went up a few thousand percent knowing he’d dealt with this intensity of feeling and had managed to deal with a fermenting war at the same time.
Still, Jack realized that despite the challenges he faced, the biggest, most important thing was that he had met her. He knew this woman before him would be tucked next to him at night, every night for the rest of his life. How he’d work it all out wasn’t clear just then, but he would. There was no reason for him to believe fate would put Renee into his path and not provide a way to work things out.
He took a deep breath and kept his composure. Barely. “You do have me at a disadvantage. You know my name and yet, here I am not knowing yours.”
She laughed, not beautiful, lyrical laughter, but a full-on, throaty laugh. He bit back a groan at the raw sensuality of the sound.
“Are we pretending you didn’t come in here after I left last night to ask where I was?”
Busted. Here he was, an Enforcer, supposedly the biggest badass in the country, and he’d been busted by a smidgen of a woman. Good thing he’d been best friends with a woman this size who could scare any smart man twice his size. Grace Warden would like Renee a lot. Once they got over their initial hatred of the other. The stories about the first meetings between Grace and Nina Warden after Grace and Cade had mated were legendary.
Getting ahead of himself. He needed to focus again. “It’s my turn to blush.”
“Blush?” She cocked her head and looked him up and down. “Why do I get the feeling blushing isn’t something you do very often?”
“Given the right circumstances I totally blush.” He bet she could get him to blush all the time.
“Like when you get caught checking up on a girl who tells you she’s with someone?” Her smile faded into something else. She froze, blinking her eyes rapidly, cocking her head as she looked at him.
“Are you all right?” He didn’t smell fear or anger, but clearly something was going on with her. His wolf pressed against the human skin, alert, needing to protect and comfort.
“Well now, this is interesting. You’re a wolf. The wolf Galen scented yesterday.”
He looked around. Someone approached and she shifted her attention, smiling brightly at the newcomer. “Hey, Pete. The usual?”
“With a shot of wheatgrass too, please.” The guy leaned against the counter and sent moony eyes at Jack’s woman.
Effortlessly, Renee put a bunch of stuff together and used the blender to mix it. Pungent and sweet scents married, carried along with her essential spice. She slid it to the other guy with a smile.
He thanked her, dropped some money on the counter and toddled off, oblivious to Jack’s glare. And that’s when he saw it, the bite on her shoulder. She’d been marked by this cat, which meant way more than a simple dating relationship.
“Now, for you?” Renee looked him up and down, her shirt falling back into place and hiding the bite mark once again. “Obviously you need something with protein in it.” She turned and began to fiddle with stuff.
“How about a coffee? I’m not one for health food.” He hoped he didn’t sound grumpy, but he felt it anyway. And then he let it go. She was his and this cat, whoever he was, wasn’t going to keep him away.
Renee wanted to roll her eyes at his tone, but stopped herself. He was a freaking werewolf and he wasn’t one for health food? Something inside her bolted. No, he was going to take care of himself.
“You’ll have a smoothie.” She assembled an orange mango power smoothie. The protein powder would help keep his energy up. She made them for Galen twice a day, shifters needed extra protein and calories. Coffee would not do.
“You’re very bossy.” One of his eyebrows rose, but the smile on his face made her nervously giddy.
“I am. You’re a werewolf.” She shrugged. The world was so magical, most people simply had no understanding of the dozens of layers the world had. This made her laugh and his expression made her laugh even harder. Susan/Phoenix looked up from her perch behind the counter but soon went back to chatting with her customer.
“How do you know?” Wonderment, not anger.
From a very early age, she’d known things. She’d known when the phone would ring or when something very good or bad was coming. And she saw. Most people looked around and kept from bumping into things, but Renee saw. At certain angles or in the right sort of light she saw within people, their true nature often revealed and they had no idea. Many times, Renee wished she didn’t have any idea either. Some people’s true selves were not so pretty and most of them were human and not supernatural beings.
She pushed the smoothie his way. “Drink it and I’ll tell you.”
She should not be playing with him this way. This one was so very clearly a predator, but she couldn’t help it. It amused her to push him around. This was dangerous. The man was way more than the normal flirty customer. This man got to her. Part of her wanted to run, warring with the part of her who needed to follow this path with Jack Meyers to see where it ended up. It was more than flirtation. So that made her wary. She might like to look at a handsome man in a totally carnal way, but that didn’t mean she’d actually do anything about it. Renee loved Galen de La Vega more than she could ever put into words.
“Is this like dingleberry nuts with some tree fruit hand harvested by tame monkeys in the Amazon?”
His silly tease brought her attention back to him, to that surfer’s face with those big white teeth and eyes that held a teasing light.
“You’re psychic. I’m the executive director of the tame monkey union.”
He stilled a moment and sent her a smile she felt way down to her toes. And um, other places too. She’d seen that smile on many an alpha male’s face. Male shifters were a handful and she wished good luck to the woman this one settled his attentions on. But she already had an alpha male shifter who wanted to “take care of her” and one was more than enough, even if this one was a whole bunch of hotness. She would never risk hurting Galen and she’d certainly never break the trust they had. But there was something here, something she felt like she had to let happen. That evening she’d discuss it with Galen to see what he thought of the situation.
He took a sip and one more. “Okay, you win. You and your monkeys. It’s good. What is it?”
“Other than dingleberry nuts? Which by the way, you do know what a dingleberry is, right?”
He grinned again. Her whole system redlined for a moment and she had to start coring strawberries to tear her mind away from that face.
“Is there like a fourteen-year-old boy living inside you?”
“Sometimes. Anyway, banana, mango, strawberry, apple juice and protein powder. Oh and some frozen yogurt to make it like a milkshake. How many calories a day do you have to put away?”
“How about I answer all your questions over some lunch?”
“Jack, you’re very handsome and I’m totally flattered. But I’m with someone. I told you that. I’m in love with him, we live together and we’re married.”
“Human married? Not mated?”
“In every way that counts, yes.” She narrowed her eyes at him, but before she could say anything else, his phone rang. With an agitated sigh, he looked at the display and picked up.
“What?” he barked as he answered.
She tried not to listen. Well, that was a lie. She tried to listen without anyone knowing she was listening. But he did that male guttural thing. Grunting single-word answers.
“You owe me so big.” He hung up and when he turned his gaze back to her she felt it like a shove. “I’m sorry. Work.” He put a five on the counter. “Keep the change. I’ll see you tomorrow, Renee. We can talk about where to go to lunch then.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you, Jack Meyers. I told you, I’m taken,” she called out as he left.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Susan/Phoenix approached once the shop emptied out a bit.
“What are you talking about?” Renee wiped down her counter and did her best to not be agitated by her stepmother’s presence, or to let her make Renee feel guilty over something she hadn’t done. It was a near thing. For pretty much most of Renee’s life, the woman had sought to keep her under her thumb, to tear Renee down when she felt it was necessary. The woman was all about drama and emotional outbursts. She had been since the first time she’d gone out to dinner with Renee’s father. Of course, she’d been Susan back then. The facets she’d seen in her stepmother hadn’t always been so bright and full of love. But some things didn’t bear obsessing over. The past couldn’t be undone.
She didn’t doubt Susan/Phoenix loved Renee’s father, but the feelings between the two women were far more complicated. Obligation was there, but love? Renee didn’t believe her stepmother had the capacity to love anyone but herself and Renee’s father, and him only marginally. There was more jealousy than affection, which Renee used to regret, but she was too old to feel sorry about other people’s choices. She made her own, good and bad, but she always tried to protect those she loved and cared about.
However, being accused of something when she’d never given any reason for anyone to doubt her really pissed Renee off.
“This guy. He’s the one who came in here last night. Do you want to blow things with Galen by cheating so publically? Are you really so stupid that you’d risk yourself this way? Don’t be dumb. He’s a great catch even with the drawbacks.”
Renee put the cloth down and turned her stare to the other woman. “Drawbacks? Cheating? What the hell are you talking about? Of course Galen’s a great catch. That’s why I’m married to him and live with him. That’s why he and I are engaged to be married in my world too. That’s why I love him. As for Jack, I made the guy a smoothie. A guy I’ve seen exactly twice in my life for maybe a total of fifteen minutes. I didn’t have sex with him. I run a retail cart, interacting with customers happens every day. Men and women both flirt with me every day. He’s a customer. He flirted, I told him I was engaged. He wasn’t rude. What should I have done? Slapped his face for asking me to lunch?”
“You have bad judgment. Like your mother.” Susan/Phoenix threw up her hands like she was just so fed up with the world. Fucking drama queen.
This had become a bigger issue over the years as her stepmother began to insult Renee’s mother more and more often. Not much made her angrier. Renee’s mother had died when Renee had been seven. Susan/Phoenix hadn’t entered their lives until her father had moved them to Boston a year later. He’d been married to her for twenty years, but it didn’t make Susan an expert on Cindy Parcell and it certainly didn’t give her the right to ever make disparaging comments about a woman people said only good things about. Fact was, even if Cindy had been a three-dollar-handjob whore, it wasn’t up to Susan to say one negative word.
Renee shut down rather than punch someone. “You have no right, Susan. Now leave me alone. You’ve said whatever you needed to say.”
The day went on, annoyingly long, but it had been busy enough that Renee hadn’t had any time to obsess or stew over her fight with Phoenix earlier. When she closed up, she walked past the front counter and said nothing.
The walk home did her some good. She kept a brisk pace, took in the sight of the leaves changing, the scent of dark coming, and let go of the anger the best she could.
The condo was empty when she got home. Galen’s absence made the place a bit chillier, made her feel a bit more lonely. Galen was her best friend, she wanted to share with him about the fight today, wanted to talk to him about Jack.
She’d lacked close friends growing up. When her mother had died, her father just sort of distanced himself from her. They’d never really gotten that closeness back. Her life had been one thing, and then it was suddenly something else and she’d never really been allowed to look backward. Looking backward was difficult, cloudy. They’d avoided discussing it and Renee had never had the opportunity to talk about it with anyone else because her mother’s family had refused all contact with her years ago. No one else knew her, knew her mother before. It felt like a dream sometimes.
Maybe a hot shower would help. And a glass of wine or two. By the time she was nice and relaxed, Galen would be home. She’d pounce on him and in the afterglow, tell him about her day. She knew she’d feel better once she got his input.
Galen looked up from the stack of papers before him. The clock had to be wrong. Eight? Already? Damn. He pulled his cell phone out and saw he’d received one text message from Renee some hours before. Not nagging, just a question about what his schedule would be that evening. And he’d been offline and in the middle of this damned case for hours without even realizing how late it had gotten. Working late wasn’t that unusual for him and she didn’t keep tabs, but they kept each other informed about their schedules.
He dialed home quickly. Her voice, when she answered, made him feel immediately better.
“I’m so sorry, babe. Time got away from me. I had the phone off during a conference call and I must have forgotten to turn the ringer back on.”
“Okay. No big deal. I know what your job can be like sometimes. When are you coming home?”
He heard her rustling around and knew she’d perched herself on the big couch with blankets, a glass of wine and a movie. Holy shit did that sound good. Unfortunately, as he looked back at the screen and the pile on the desk, that wasn’t going to be happening anytime soon.
“I got a case dumped on me this afternoon. I need to file a motion tomorrow and get this brief done by Friday. I’m sorry to say I won’t be home for another several hours.”
“Oh. Okay. Well, I understand. Can I bring you dinner? Have you eaten?”
Had he? God it felt like forever ago that he’d eaten last. A big lunch after court and then another meal when he’d met with Max and had been given the case he was currently working on.
“I’m going to order something right now. I promise. You sound funny. Are you okay?”
She paused and the soft sound of her sigh tore at him. “I’m fine. Just tired. If you promise to eat, I’ll probably just go to bed early.”
He sat up at the emotion in her voice. Sad. Lonely. His system responded, needing to rub himself along her body to comfort, to give affection.
“I’m coming home now. I can work on this tomorrow. I’ll just come in early.”
“No you won’t. You have a job to do. I can hear how stressed you sound. I’m going to order your food the minute we hang up. That way I know you’re eating right.”
This woman, God, how she got to him. Under his skin. Into his heart and soul. “I can hear how you sound. You think I’d just abandon you when you’re so obviously having a bad day?”
“You’re going to make me cry. Stop it. Really, I’m all right. Just a crappy day, that’s all. Nothing earth shattering. I got into a fight with Phoenix. She said stuff about my mom. There’s this thing happening I wanted to run by you. None of this is urgent. We have the weekend, we’ll talk then.”
“You need to move your cart. There are better locations for you and then you won’t owe her anything. You won’t have to deal with her every day. It’s not good for you.” Which was an understatement. Phoenix always had an agenda. He didn’t trust her at all and that she made Renee so unhappy drove him insane. He’d been trying to convince her to move the cart for the last year, but she stayed, trying to have a relationship with her father. Phoenix was toxic to Renee.
She sighed again. “Cool. Not the Susan thing, but the fact that I was just able to order your dinner from Luke’s via their website. You need to call downstairs to have the doorman let them up.”
He laughed. “Thank you for taking care of me, babe. I’ll try not to be later than one or so. What did you mean by thing happening?”
“The wolf you scented was this guy I ran into last night. The apple guy. I saw his inner self when he came into the shop today to get a smoothie. It feels odd. I wanted to bounce ideas off you, get your take.”
Everything went still inside him, a cat with his woman in harm’s way. “Does he scare you? Did he harm you or threaten you?”
“No! Not like that at all. He’s very nice. Or not threatening anyway. Odd as in unusual. It’s complicated and long and I wanted your opinion. I’ll tell you about it tomorrow night. Really, I promise, I’m okay. I just miss you and I’m tired. If you have to stay super late, just sleep there. Coming all the way home at three to have to get back there by seven seems pretty silly when you have a place to sleep and spare clothes there. I hate you being out that late.”
“I’m coming home when I finish. I want to sleep next to you tonight, like I do every night. Drink some tea, read a while and then go to bed. I love you.”
“I love you too. Be safe and eat every single thing I ordered for you.”
When he hung up, he made sure to deal with the delivery instructions for the doorman and then he dived back into his work so he could finish up and get home to her.